"Look, my job is essentially just corralling more and more and more facts and information, and occasionally seeing whether that leads to some action," he once said in an interview .

"We don't read other people's opinions," he said. "We want to get the facts, and then think."

To help you get into the mind of the billionaire investor, we've rounded up 19 of his book recommendations over 20 years of interviews and shareholder letters.

Drake Baer contributed reporting on a previous version of this article.

"The Intelligent Investor" by Benjamin Graham

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When Buffett was 19, he picked up a copy of legendary Wall Streeter Benjamin Graham's "The Intelligent Investor."

It was one of the luckiest moments of his life, he said , because it gave him the intellectual framework for investing.

"To invest successfully over a lifetime does not require a stratospheric IQ, unusual business insights, or inside information," Buffett said. "What's needed is a sound intellectual framework for making decisions and the ability to keep emotions from corroding that framework. This book precisely and clearly prescribes the proper framework. You must provide the emotional discipline."

1. Remember reversion to the mean. What's hot today isn't likely to be hot tomorrow. The stock market reverts to fundamental returns over the long run. Don't follow the herd.

2. Time is your friend, impulse is your enemy. Take advantage of compound interest and don't be captivated by the siren song of the market. That only seduces you into buying after stocks have soared and selling after they plunge.

"Business Adventures: Twelve Classic Tales from the World of Wall Street" by John Brooks

Inreply, Buffett sent the Microsoft founder his personal copy of "Business Adventures," a collection of New Yorker stories by John Brooks.

Gates says that the book serves as a reminder that the principles for building a winning business stay constant. He wrote:

For one thing, there's an essential human factor in every business endeavor. It doesn't matter if you have a perfect product, production plan and marketing pitch; you'll still need the right people to lead and implement those plans.

The book has become a media darling in recent years; Slate wrote that it's "catnip for billionaires."

"Where Are the Customers' Yachts?" by Fred Schwed

"The funniest book ever written about investing," Warren Buffett proclaimed in his 2006 shareholder letter , "it lightly delivers many truly important messages on the subject."

First published in 1940, the book takes its title from a story about a visitor to New York who saw the bankers' and brokers' yachts and asked where the customers' were. Obviously, they couldn't afford them the people providing the financial advice were in a better position to splurge than the people who followed the advice.

The book is filled with irreverent wisdom and colorful anecdotes about Wall Street, and remains compelling even today.

"The Most Important Thing Illuminated" by Howard Marks

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Marks, chairman and cofounder of Oak Tree Capital, intended to wait until he retired to write this book, as noted in a 2011 Barron's review . But Buffett so admired Marks' client memos that he offered to write a dust-jacket blurb if Marks would publish the book sooner.

The result is "a rarity, a useful book," Buffett reportedly said.

Marks aims to help investors achieve success by putting more thought into their decisions, drawing heavily on his own mistakes and what he learned from them.

"First a Dream" by Jim Clayton and Bill Retherford

Jim Clayton grew up the son of a sharecropper in Tennessee and eventually went on to found Clayton Homes, currently the largest producer and seller of manufactured housing in the US.

Buffett credits Clayton's autobiography with inspiring him to invest in Clayton Homes in 2003. In his 2003 shareholder letter , he wrotethat the book was a gift to him from students at the University of Tennessee. Buffett told the students how much he enjoyed the book, and they urged him to call Kevin Clayton, Jim's son and the company's CEO, to deliver the praise directly.

"Soon thereafter, I made an offer for the business based solely on Jim's book, my evaluation of Kevin, the public financials of Clayton," and his experience buying "distressed junk" from Oakwood Homes, a retailer of manufactured homes that he later purchased after it filed for bankruptcy.

It's worth noting that Fast Company reported the deal between Berkshire Hathaway and Clayton Homes was a little more complicated than that.

In his "rags to riches" tale , Clayton shares lessons on business and leadership for current and aspiring entrepreneurs.

"The Making of the President" by Theodore White

In a 2016 Politico Playbook interview , Buffett said he loves reading political books, especially this Pulitzer Prize-winning classic published in 1961. (White also published three sequels.)

White chronicles the 1960 race for the presidency that John F. Kennedy ultimately won, from the primaries to the general election. In its attention to detail and to the candidates' personal struggles, the book can read more like a novel a style of political reporting that at that time had never been seen before.

Writing in The Wall Street Journal , political reporter David M. Shribman said the book "stands out as the most influential political chronicle of the 20th century, perhaps of all time."

"Limping on Water" by Phil Beuth and K.C. Schulberg

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This recommendation from Buffett's 2015 shareholder letter tells the story of Phil Beuth's 40-year career with Capital Cities/ABC-TV. It's a personal recounting of Beuth's journey from a boy afflicted with cerebral palsy, his family struggling to make ends meet, to a top media executive.